


Who You Really See

by MiraculousBookworm02



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Dan Howell and Phil Lester - Freeform, Friendship, Gore, Halloween, Horror, Losing Control, Phandom - Freeform, Possession, Sadness, Self Harm, Souls/spirits, Suicidal Thoughts/Actions, Violence, october 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 05:31:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraculousBookworm02/pseuds/MiraculousBookworm02
Summary: He was going to give the tablets to Dan, and then leave. He could think about the off feeling he got when he entered Dan’s bedroom later, when he wasn’t holding the medicine that his best friend had helplessly asked Phil to get for himself.So with that final decision in mind, he approached Dan’s sleeping figure and gently shook him awake, pretending to be oblivious to the sick feeling in his stomach that was screaming at him in warning.





	1. Who You Were

"Hey Phil, do we have anymore painkillers?"

Phil perked his head up from his computer screen as he heard Dan's voice from the kitchen. Unsure of an answer, Phil replied with, "I don't know," before closing his laptop and heading over to Dan's current position.

When he arrived, he saw their medicine cabinet emptied from its contents, and dozens of packets strewn about the tabletop; none of them being the painkillers Dan had requested.

"Any luck?" Phil asked, eyeing the various antibiotics on the bench.

A somewhat aggravated huff came from Dan as he shook his head and made his way over to the tap, where he filled an empty glass with water and downed it immediately.

Phil looked at him guiltily. "I thought we had some Dan, I really did..."

But Dan only waved him away and stared down at the kitchen tiles intently, his fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically to the pounding pain in his forehead.

''Do you want me to go out and get some?" Phil offered, trying to be helpful.

Nodding weakly in response, Dan steadied himself against the bench and breathed out slowly, attempting to gain some composure before walking away from the scene.

"I'm just gonna lay down for a bit. I'll be in my room when you come home."

"Ok, I'll be back in two ticks!"

He heard a mumbled reply from Dan as he walked down the hallway to his bedroom, and Phil couldn't help but wonder what had triggered this sudden illness in Dan. That thought would have to wait for later, though, as now he had to buy painkillers for his flatmate.

~

The apartment was eerily quiet when Phil returned. It was as if a strange aura had taken over the place, and that every normal aspect of the apartment had contorted into a brutal, twisted image of what it had been. Though there was nothing noticeably different about it, Phil concluded, that didn't mean nothing had changed on the interior.

Since Dan shouldn't have moved from his location, Phil ignored the enigmatic atmosphere of the kitchen as he made his way down to Dan's bedroom, the figure of his shadow flickering in the weak light of the hallway. He took a quick peak outside of the window to see a grey, gloomy London spanning the view from behind the glass, with limited artificial lighting illuminating the dark city. It seemed unnaturally quiet for London, but maybe that was because of the time of day. Or rather, night.

Before Phil opened the door to Dan's bedroom, he glanced down at his watch to check the time, perplexed that it had been that long since he'd left the house. It was now 11:45, and Phil couldn't help but feel a little guilty that he'd left Dan on his own for approximately an hour. It shouldn't have taken him that long to find the right kind of drug for Dan, but he knew that if he bought tablets which were too big, Dan wouldn't even bat an eyelid at them, let alone swallow them. As well as that, it was difficult finding painkillers that were strong enough to battle Dan's current condition, as most of the heavy-duty tablets that would ease Dan's pain were only sold over the counter with a prescription. Phil didn't need to think twice about bringing Dan down for a doctor's appointment just for permission to buy the drug, as it was well into the night already and before he left his home Dan didn't appear to be in the best form of his life for the public eye.

As Phil considered telling Dan his many excuses for arriving home so late, he decided he would just apologise and hand over the tablets instead of try to excuse his poor punctuality. He hovered his hand over the doorknob for a moment, but he ignored his hesitation as he gently pushed the door open; a soft screech beginning to echo around the large bedroom from the rusty door hinges.

"Hey Dan, I got your painkillers," Phil whispered, unsure if Dan was asleep when he'd opened the door but was now beginning to wake.

"Pst. Dan. Daaan."

He slowly began to approach the double bed, seeing Dan's still form cocooned inside a group of fluffy blankets a couple of metres away from him. He almost began to walk over to Dan without the goal of being near silent, but an obscure warning from his gut told him to freeze on the spot.

Something was wrong.

Phil still couldn't tell what it was, but he knew something had been wrong all along, whether or not he decided to acknowledged it aloud in his thoughts. He'd known since he'd entered the apartment and the joyous atmosphere he'd become familiar with had crippled, with it being replaced by a strange, abnormal one. One that Phil did not consider welcomed.

He couldn't tell if something related to Dan himself was wrong, or if it was simply something about the room he was in that was amiss. Regardless of what it was, there was something definitely wrong in Dan's room.

Phil stood, motionless, in the middle of Dan's private bedroom, unsure of what to do.

He was mulling over his options with extreme care as he considered the possible outcomes for each action he could take, but soon realised that he was overthinking it and that there was really only one thing he could do in his situation.

Wake Dan up, and hand him the painkillers.

There was no going back now. He was going to give the tablets to Dan, and then leave. He could think about the off feeling he got when he entered Dan's bedroom later, when he wasn't holding the medicine that his best friend had helplessly asked Phil to get for himself.

So with that final decision in mind, he approached Dan's sleeping figure and gently shook him awake, pretending to be oblivious to the sick feeling in his stomach that was screaming at him in warning.


	2. Who You Can Be

At first Dan had no reaction to Phil's gentle shaking, the only movement being his collection of blankets rising and falling periodically in time with his breaths. Then, as if he was awakening from a nightmare, his eyes sprung open with the sudden exigency to be aware and conscious enough to realise what was happening around him.

Phil immediately stopped agitating his friend in fear of annoying, or even possibly harming him in the process, and instead tried to comfort him by softly rubbing the bedsheets surrounding his body. Dan smiled, although it accidentally transformed into a grimace, and was thankful for the gesture and the security that came with it. He slowly sat up from his lying position on the bed in order to fully wake himself, and Phil had only let his gaze wander from Dan's for a moment, but that amount of time was enough for a dramatic turn of events to take place.

Dan's eyes were suddenly black. He was still smiling genuinely at Phil, that much hadn't changed, but his eyes painfully betrayed the merry expression written on his features. He appeared to be unaware of it, too, which only made the situation that much more frightening to Phil.

"D-Dan?! Your e-eyes!"

"W-What about them?" Dan replied, trying to ignore the clear panic in Phil's voice.

"They're... They're... They're just, black!"

Dan frowned, the seriousness of the problem finally dawning on him. In his urgency, he threw the blankets off of himself and dashed over to the bathroom, where he knew a mirror would greet him as he entered. Phil followed quickly behind, assuming that Dan even wanted to see what he looked like in the first place.

The bathroom door swung open as Dan rushed into the room, his breath halting as he saw what his new appearance consisted of. Dark, boundless eyes greeted him, with Dan suddenly having extreme appreciation of his normal brown irises in comparison to the current ones. Any colour, in Dan's opinion, would be better than these black eyes that bored into your soul.

Phil watched on in silence, surprised that Dan's reaction had been so calm, so nonchalant. It was vastly unlike his usual responses, which were loud and unforgiving to the point that he didn't care what he said. This, however, was a measured response. One that Phil had been far from expecting.

He had been even less expectant of Dan's choking noises.

At first, Phil thought he was just struggling to draw proper breaths from purely shock, but when Dan began to feel around his neck for the imaginary pressure blocking his oesophagus, Phil realised this scene was far from normal. Dark veins rose to the surface of his skin around his neck, and his face in particular soon became covered in these small, inhuman arteries.

Phil had no idea what to do.

Then, just as suddenly as Dan's choking had started, it stopped. He stood, still as a statue in the middle of their bathroom; head dipped low and eyes concealed from Phil's view. His fingers twitched ever so slightly by his side, but other than that small movement he was completely stationary. His breathing was also shallower than usual. It almost sounded forced.

"Dan? Are you... Are you alright?"

"Does it look like I'm alright?!" Dan growled in response, his voice significantly coarser than usual.

He turned to face Phil, his eyes showing those same, black orbs as earlier. Except they were now surrounded by the small, black veins that had originally appeared on his neck no more than a minute ago.

"Dan... T-This isn't normal. We need to take you to the doctor, or-"

"I don't need a doctor."

His voice had altered completely within moments. The panicked expression that had been on his face only seconds ago had now twisted into a small smile that made Phil sick to the stomach.

"Do you know what day it is, Phil?"

The voice was raw and unrecognisable. Yet, it was coming from Dan. The confusion Phil was experiencing was numbing his mind to the point that he could no longer rationalise his thoughts, and he abruptly found it difficult to concentrate on finding a reasonable explanation for the current course of events.

Unless there wasn't a reasonable explanation to be found.

While in the midst of his own suffocating thoughts, Phil forgot to answer Dan's earlier question. Dan's smile tightened as he awaited a response, but when he failed to receive one he attempted to prod Phil's memory by telling him the date.

"Phil, it's October 19th."

The date, sadly, held no immediate significance to Phil. From the look on Dan's pale face, however, he assumed that it should. But no matter how much he racked his brain for details on the date, he couldn't come up with any relevant information that would inform him of its importance. He felt utterly clueless as Dan stared at him impatiently, waiting for an answer that was never going to come.

A sigh escaped Dan's lips as he shook his head in disappointment, his eyes still that abnormal black and his skin still covered in dark veins.

"I should've known you've forgotten. It was eight years ago, after all..."

A memory came to light in Phil's thoughts. A voice, a scene, a person. But try as he might, the images were all foggy, the voices muffled. It was a pointless exercise for him to keep recalling the same images, so he cautiously waited for Dan's explanation, now knowing that he had indeed forgotten something meaningful about that particular day.

"I guess I'm not important enough for you to remember," Dan muttered with a note of sadness. "Was our first meeting not memorable to you, Phil?"

Guilt slashed across his chest painfully as he finally remember the significance of the date. He knew he should have remembered, and he was sure of himself that if he hadn't been put into such a stressful situation, he would have recalled the information with ease. But with Dan's soulless eyes glaring at him, and his usual personality far from in sight, Phil had simply panicked. Forgotten. Been made a fool.

The sad smile on Dan's face told him everything he needed to know about his opinion on the matter.

"Do you even know how much that hurt to hear? The man who you've spent eight years of your twenty-six year old life with forgetting the fucking date you first met?"

Dan's breathing abruptly turned erratic, and his words became less fluent and more of a foreign language.

"It s-shatters your fucking h-heart, Phil!"

The emotional state Dan was in was unlike anything Phil had ever seen before. He was seething with anger, but also appeared to be on the verge of tears. His arms were flailing, trying to emphasise his point, but really they just highlighted how desperate he was to make Phil understand everything; how desperate he was to make Phil understand him.

He was a mess, and the situation only worsened from there.

A vast darkness was beginning to conjure up from behind Dan, with him seeming to be unaware of it. It writhed with life, as if it had a mind of its own, but stayed within the proximity of Dan, almost as if the darkness was drawn to him. Phil was lost for words as he saw the shadows pounce and squirm behind his friend, all rules of physics suddenly thrown out the window by this unexplainable event.

Tears were now freely falling down Dan's cheeks as he put on full display his honest feelings, which was a rarity for even Phil to witness. It was then that the shadows began to creep in on Dan, and slowly surround the back of his body. Dan still seemed to be unaware of the approaching darkness, and Phil suddenly felt the need to warn Dan of them, even though he didn't know what they were or what dangers they could possess.

"Behind you, Dan..." Phil said with wide eyes, hoping that was enough to notify his unstable flatmate.

Dan's eyes flickered back to brown and white and suddenly, he was Dan again. His hands started to tremor severely and his eyes were conveying to Phil the extreme terror he was experiencing, and Phil wanted nothing more than to comfort him and tell him that everything would be ok.

That was until a black tendon of darkness plunged into Dan's back.

Dan screamed.

He screamed and cried and pulled and kicked and Phil ran over to him in an instant, noting immediately that Dan's eyes had switched back to their black form. Ink-like tears spilled from his raven eyes as he continued to wail in pain, and Phil tried his hardest to swat the darkness away with his bare hands. When his hand did connect with the coiling shadows, a temperature as cold as ice flooded his senses and he immediately drew his hand back in shock.

This didn't stop him, though. He continued punching and kicking the darkness, desperate to save Dan from whatever supernatural form was present in their apartment. His futile attempts appeared to be getting him nowhere as the tendon of darkness attached to Dan's back pulsed and thrashed violently, Dan appearing to be on the verge of fainting from the unimaginable pain. He hadn't stopped crying since it'd started. It was unlikely he was going to stop now.

"P-P... Phi-IL!" Dan screamed as another black tendon thrust into Dan, this time entering through his chest. "Stop fighting it, stop fighting it, PHIL STOP FIGHTING IT!"

Dan's sudden outburst made Phil flinch away from him, and as soon as he did so Dan was swarmed with darkness, each trail of black torpedoing into various parts of Dan's body. The whole time Dan was shrieking his throat dry from the onslaught of pain, but just as quickly as the shadows had surrounded him, they disappeared.

They had disappeared into Dan's body.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Dan's eyes faded back to being brown and white, but his face still portrayed the same look of absolute horror he'd had when the shadows had first began intruding his anatomy. He could feel the darkness inside of him. Pulsing. Thrashing. But somehow contained in Dan's flesh.

He stayed standing for all of another two seconds before fainting, the shock of it all and the immense torture he'd had to endure forcing himself to lose consciousness; Phil's voice of panic filling his ears a moment before his vision deteriorated to black.


	3. Who You Hate To Free

Dan was unconscious for about an hour in total after his sudden blackout, and in that time Phil had managed to awkwardly carry him back to his own bedroom and onto his bed, where he could at least lie in a comfortable position in a familiar environment. The entire time he was lying there, Phil watched over him cautiously, uncertain as to whether or not when he woke up he would still be the 'Dan' he knew and loved.

He could only hope that the whole event had been a dream, but Phil knew better than to hope for unrealistic explanations.

When Dan finally started showing signs of consciousness, he made no effort to shake him thoroughly awake like last time. He knew his dismay was unreasonable, but he was scared that if he shook Dan awake again it might trigger his black eyes to appear, alongside the dreaded darkness Phil feared so much.

Shoving thoughts of dagger-like shadows piercing Dan's skin away, he smiled gently at Dan as he groggily opened his eyes, and immediately his friend's hand flew to his forehead, as if he was in pain.

"Are you alright, Dan?"

It took Dan a moment to process what Phil had said, but when he understood what was being asked he timidly nodded his head in response.

"Yeah, but-" Dan's train of though halted for a moment as a blinding rod of pain ripped through his skull. "My head is slowly killing me..."

Remembering the painkillers Phil had bought him earlier, he clicked his fingers happily and picked up the packet from Dan's bedside table; a small grin of gratefulness spreading across Dan's face as he did so.

"Thank you, Phil," Dan whispered as he took the antibiotics out of his friend's grasp.

A nagging thought reminded Phil that he needed to tell Dan something other than the fact that shadows had physically attacked and invaded his body about an hour ago. "Also, um, happy eight year anniversary? I don't exactly know what to call it..."

A half-laugh reverberated around the room as Dan understood through Phil's expression that he hadn't actually forgotten about the date earlier, but had rather been under too much stress to bring it up to mind immediately.

"Thanks. You too..." Dan whispered, those three words alone showing his immediate forgiveness for the earlier incident.

Neither of them wanted to bring up the obvious point of discussion. However, as much as Phil wanted to pretend it had never happened, he knew that it would be incredibly idiotic of them to simply ignore the phenomena that had occurred in their own apartment, nevertheless to Dan himself.

"About earlier..."Phil started, noting the anxious look Dan was suddenly giving him.

"I'm fine, Phil. I only have a headache."

Biting his lip uncertainly, Phil examined Dan's current condition and was somewhat surprised that Dan was only having to suffer from a pounding headache in the aftermath of whatever the previous event had been.

"Are you absolutely sure? Because-"

"I'm alright, ok? I promise."

A small smile was sent Phil's way from how far he went to ensure Dan was completely  unharmed, and Phil gave one back as Dan sunk his head further into the pillows, waiting for sleep to take him in its merciful grasp.

~

It was a full week after October 19th, on the 26th, that Phil reached his breaking point with Dan's strange behaviour. His flatmate's emotions appeared to be untamed, and anger was suddenly the only thing Dan felt on a daily basis. It was scaring Phil how quickly his friend would go from cheerfully grinning to absolutely ropable within a couple of moments, and Phil wanted nothing more than for it to end.

He decided to approach Dan on the matter, and wasn't surprised to find Dan rolling his eyes crossly as Phil walked over to him.

"Hey Dan?"

"What do you want, Phil?"

The tone snapped Phil's kind personality in half as he realised being reasonable wasn't going to get him anywhere in this conversation. He was going to have to be upfront about the issue, and hopefully Dan will see things from his perspective for once this past week.

"I want you to stop treated me like garbage."

It was to the point, and brutally honest. Just what Phil had wanted. But Dan's reaction was exactly the opposite to what he'd desired.

"You're the one treating me like a child! Every second you're asking me if I'm ok from something that happened last week! It wouldn't hurt for you to shut up every once in a while, would it?"

Phil couldn't help the huff of annoyance he exhaled as he heard Dan's pathetic excuse for his behaviour.

"Are you serious? You're avoiding and insulting me because I care about your health?"

"I don't need you checking on me every hour of the day! I can take care of myself, you know. In fact, I don't even need you!"

Phil's last ounce of patience dissipated as he saw the fiery glare Dan was giving him, and Phil held his hands up in defeat as he came to terms with the fact that Dan was being completely ignorant to his thoughts on the issue.

"Fine. I'll just leave you alone from now on."

It really shouldn't have been an eye-opener to Phil how stubborn Dan actually was, but nevertheless he felt his eyes begin to water as he slowly turned away from his flatmate, his forlorn expression betraying his icy tone. He couldn't tell if Dan had seen the single tear that he had failed to keep imprisoned, but he did hear footsteps leave his presence and a door close, leaving Phil to assume that Dan had simply left him when he was most vulnerable.

It hurt, Phil realised, to hear those words come out of Dan's mouth.

"It wouldn't hurt for you to shut up every once in a while, would it?"

"I can take care of myself."

"In fact, I don't even need you!"

Although the sentences didn't physically harm Phil, he felt their sting vibrate through every part of his essence, telling him he'd been the one in the wrong, the one who'd made things worse than they needed to be. It might have just been his body's obscure way of getting him to apologise to Dan so they could hopefully put this argument far behind them, but he felt like it was something more significant than that.

There was a distinct pull guiding him towards Dan's room, and he didn't know why. It wasn't the fact that he felt guilty about their disagreement, but rather that something wrong could be going on in that room. He remembered feeling an emotion similar to this a week ago, when Dan's body had been invaded by a darkness previously unknown to humanity.

His gut hadn't been wrong then, and he heavily doubted it would be now.

Phil paced himself over to Dan's bedroom, and considered knocking before entering. However, his instincts told him to simply open the door, and he hoped to God his instincts were right on this occasion, as angering Dan even further than their last encounter would not have great effects on their already cracked friendship.

With that thought in mind, he swung the door open as quickly as he humanely could, and nearly screamed in shock of what Dan was doing on his bed. His shirt was off, the piece of clothing discarded carelessly on the floor, and his chest and arms were littered with bright red cuts and scars, all bleeding significant amounts of blood onto the dirtied bedsheets that Dan sat upon. His eyes were black once more, and Phil noticed with a gasp that in his left hand he held a small kitchen knife, and attached to that knife were several black tendons of darkness that grew out of Dan's arm and controlled the knife itself.

Dan appeared to be unaware of Phil's presence, as he stared directly at the knife and blocked out anything else in his peripheral vision, like nothing but the knife he held existed in his small, lonely universe. The shadows curled tighter around the hilt of the dagger and directed it towards his own chest, the blade now pressed against his blotchy red skin.

"Dan, what the hell are you doing? Stop, please! STOP!"

It felt like Phil was running in slow motion, as by the time he had gotten to Dan's side a long, ghastly wound had appeared in place of the knife's trajectory across his chest. Blood began pouring out of the slit, and he saw out of the corner of his eye the knife beginning to line up with another part of Dan's flesh, ready to leave another intrusive scar. The worst part of the situation though, was the fact that Dan was completely unresponsive to any of Phil's desperate calls, as if he was in a world of his own where suffering and darkness were his only friends.

The very thought tore Phil's being apart.

Not knowing what else he could do to help, Phil made a move for the object in Dan's hand, and winced in pain when the sharp blade cut his fingers open mercilessly; Dan's blood and his own now beginning to mix on the metal. He didn't let go, though. Dan's condition mattered more to himself than his own.

The shadows that had wrapped around the hilt were now snaking their way up Phil's wrist, and he could feel the overwhelming sense of cold the darkness brought with it. He tried with all of his willpower to wriggle his hand free of the coiling shadows, but it was all to no avail. With his right hand trapped in the grasp of the supernatural, he brought his left hand over to Dan's own, and attempted to pry his friend's freezing fingers off of the knife.

The drop in temperature was beginning to surround him as he realised the shadows were now past his elbow, and his right hand could no longer be seen underneath the writhing mess of tenebrosity. He needed to act urgently. Unconsciousness was only a breath away from him now.

Phil desperately pulled Dan's curled fingers off the hilt of the blade, and was somewhat relieved to discover that his grip had loosened while the shadows had climbed his figure. Three fingers left. He only had to remove the knife from Dan's grasp and then he would no longer be able to hurt himself. He could do it.

He had to do it; there was no alternative ending for Phil.

The middle finger slackened it's hold. Two fingers remained. Phil grinned; he was going to do it. He was going to save his best friend. He kept telling that to himself as he felt the shadows slink past his shoulder and onto his chest, the function of breathing suddenly becoming difficult as an unbelievable pressure constrained his torso's movements. The cold was shutting his systems down, he realised. He didn't know why he found that funny.

He sluggishly moved his left hand from the freezing temperature, his movements no longer precise and measured. He could feel the cold surrounding him, cutting him off from any type of warmth or joy. Was this what Dan felt, when the shadows had pierced him the previous week? Or did he feel like this all the time? Phil couldn't be sure, nor could he care, as his window of opportunity was getting slimmer the longer the shadows were attached to that damn blade Dan was still holding.

Phil was slipping away, and he knew that, too. He knew he only had a few moments left. He knew that he needed to get rid of that blade. He knew so much, for little to no reason, and that knowledge could be the death of him.

Everything was so, so cold.

With his last testimony of strength, Phil pulled the dagger out of Dan's slack grasp and felt the shadows freeze against his skin; the cold no longer spreading across his torso like a disease. He felt heat gradually surround him as the darkness retreated, but Phil felt like he had been winded as he watched the shadows return to Dan's body, and somehow seep through his very skin to his core. It was a chilling event to witness, and it did everything in its power to assure Phil that he'd failed to save his best friend.

He never would have truly saved Dan until the darkness was out of his body for good, Phil concluded.

When the final traces of the black tendons had sunk into Dan's skin, his friend's eyes returned to their normal brown and white and Phil let out a quiet sigh of relief at the sight.

"P-Phil?"

The broken voice he got in return couldn't have tormented Phil any more than it did.

"Yeah, Dan?"

There was a slight pause from Dan, as if he was considering whether or not to finish his sequence of thoughts. After waiting a couple of moments, Phil was about to rush out of the bedroom to grab medical supplies when he heard Dan make a confession he'd never expected to hear from him.

"There are fucking voices in my head."


	4. Who You Are

Phil had difficulty breathing as he overanalysed Dan's statement, his imagination running wild with all of the possible outcomes these voices could have on Dan, and himself for that matter.

"W-What do you mean by, um, voices?"

"They weren't there before," Dan muttered, avoiding Phil's gaze ever so slightly. "But now they won't shut up."

He didn't know what to do. He'd heard of people having voices in their heads before, but this seemed different from other cases. For one thing, pure darkness doesn't just conjure itself up from nothing and take control of a human being.

"Dan, wha-"

"Funny how I joke about craving death, huh?"

Phil bit his lip while awkwardly standing in the middle of the doorway, unsure if he should leave Dan to get bandages and disinfectant or stay and listen to the rest of Dan's speech. He decided to stay, despite the blood dripping down Dan's pale skin.

"I tell people suicide is bad, and that they shouldn't do it, and here I am standing high and mighty before them like some sort of saint that brings light into their lives when really Phil, really, I should depict myself as the Devil himself..."

Dan scrunched his eyes up before they could show Phil the truth, and held his hands to his head as he worked his way through a horrendous headache. Phil coughed to get his attention, and Dan simply lifted his head to show that he was listening. His eyes remained closed.

"I'm going to grab some medication for those cuts, ok? Please don't do anything stupid."

Nodding barely enough for it to be visible, Dan leant back into the cushions while Phil left the bedroom; the traumatic events he'd had to witness in that room abruptly coming to light in his memory.

He couldn't stop replaying the scene where Dan cut himself. His expression was blank, and it was like he was trapped in his own sphere, with the only thing that had mattered at the time being the knife he'd held in his hand. He hadn't even seen Phil.

On top of that, Phil's last conversation with Dan made his blood turn cold. What was he trying to tell Phil? That he didn't deserve the admiration he received from his subscribers? That he wasn't worthy enough for anybody that loved him?

No, Phil thought to himself. There was something much more sinister lurking beneath that tone.

Phil grabbed a roll of injury tape and a pack of bandaids from their medicine cabinet and made his way gradually back to Dan's room, finding that he was delaying his return for as long as possible for a reason unbeknownst to his conscious. When he re-entered the familiar, yet eery, space, he found Dan laid upon his ruined bedsheets and blood still trickling down his arms and chest.

"Dan, I'm back."

"Uh huh."

He seemed entirely disinterested in what Phil had to say. He hummed and nodded when a reply was needed to Phil's questions, but other than that he remained utterly silent for the duration of the time Phil spent wrapping bandages around his torso and bandages on his arms. Phil though of asking him if he was alright, but thought better of it as clearly he wasn't.

He opted for a different, more puzzling question to ask him.

"Dan, what are the voices saying?"

His friend's eyes remained shut, but his body language told Phil that he had heard the question as clear as day. He didn't answer, though.

"Please tell me, Dan. I want to help you."

"They're gone now. I think I was just imagining them."

Phil saw through the lie immediately. However, by the grim look on his flatmate's face, he assumed he'd rather not discuss the pressing issue at the time. Phil could understand his decision, and he did respect it, but opening up to his friend should have seemed like the logical solution for Dan. Why didn't he take the opportunity to get help?

Did he even want help?

"Phil, I feel awful for asking this, I really do, but could you please leave me alone for the time being? I just need some time to... recover, I guess."

He didn't expect his heart to shrivel so quickly at the request. Dan wanted Phil to leave him alone, after everything that had just happened? He couldn't be serious.

"You don't want me here?"

A small release of breath came from Dan as he held his hand to his temple, whether it was from frustration or pain, Phil couldn't be sure. At the time he hadn't really noticed, though.

"Yeah. I... God, I hate myself so much right now, but could you please go?"

Phil knew Dan couldn't see him through his closed eyelids, but he nodded in reply to Dan's appeal and silently exited the room, leaving Dan to do whatever he liked in his own company. Phil refused to question Dan's odd desire again, instead opting to keep his insecurities about his own company to himself . He could forget about the incidents with the shadows and black eyes. He could forgive Dan for basically saying he didn't want to be around Phil for a reason he had yet to explain to his best friend. He could remember all of the fun times he'd shared with Dan, and recall them all clearly in times like this where happiness was not an easy emotion to source.

Except he couldn't.

It was as if all of the joy from his life had been drained out within days, and all he could think about were eyes, and shadows, and voices. Things that Phil knew weren't normal in his circumstances. Try as he might, the image of pure darkness consuming his best friend's eyes never really left his consciousness, and when it all became too much for him to remember constantly, he headed off to bed without so much as giving a 'Goodnight' to Dan.

He had asked to be left alone, after all.

~

They avoided each other for days. When they inevitably did came across each other, though, they diverted their eyes elsewhere and kept out of one another's way, whilst at the same time tried to finish the task at hand as quickly as possible in order to put some distance between them and their flatmate.

While they both knew this behaviour was unhealthy and generally unacceptable for friends of their status, they continued on with these actions for days. Phil didn't think he even saw eye to eye with Dan once during these painfully slow hours.

That all changed, though, on October 31st.


	5. Who You Really See

It was a quiet night, Phil concluded, as he listened to the muffled sounds of the city before him. He watched the muted colours pass his window, and saw the excited expressions on children's faces as they walked through the streets wearing bright costumes and silly smiles. It was supposed to be a joyful time of year for him and Dan, but instead it was one of awkward silences and avoiding eyes.

Phil pondered approaching Dan today. He hated the sour glances they exchanged daily whenever they came across each other, and Phil had been afraid to talk things over with his best friend in case his emotions got the better of him. It wouldn't be the first time that had occurred.

As he witnessed the happiness that was supposed to come with the occasion on the streets below him, he recollected the precious memories of him and Dan's experiences on this particular day and held them close to his heart. He remembered filming videos every day for a week, dressing up in tacky costumes and makeup that refused to come off for days, baking foods they never would make usually if it weren't for their creative audience.

He remembered happy moments with Dan, and he wanted to create more.

With this thought in mind, he found himself walking in the direction of Dan's room, newfound hope blooming in his chest as he mulled over ways on how to apologise to Dan for his childish behaviour over the past couple of days. He could fix this, he knew he could. It was only a matter of choosing the right words and conveying the right emotions. He could make things right between him and Dan.

Unwanted dread, however, punctured his cheerful attitude as he stood in front of Dan's bedroom door. Was this the right thing to do? He and Dan had never fought this coldly before; they were wading through unknown waters, unsure of how to talk to one another now that things had changed. While Phil couldn't pinpoint the exact moment things between him and his best friend had took a turn for the worse, his instinctive assumption made him believe that the shadows that had once consumed his friend and harmed him severely were the things to blame for Dan's recent changes. There was no other reasonable explanation for any of it.

His fingers hovered over the doorknob, and he felt his breath quicker as he realised he had to make a decision. Was this approach really the best he could come up with? Was there any other possible way Phil could go about this? Was this sole action going to tip the delicate balance of their friendship and flatline every available future they could have together?

These thoughts escalated into even more absurd ideas, and Phil abruptly shook his head to clear his mindset for a moment. He tried to shove his bitter thoughts into the dark depths of his subconscious, and when his judgement was no longer clouded, he made a call.

The door creaked open, painfully loud in the eerily silent room. Partially obscured moonlight streamed through the curtains and gave the room an ominous ambience, one that suddenly made sense to Phil as he saw his best friend standing in front of the curtains direfully with a noose made of black, coiling shadows hanging directly above him. The image nearly made Phil's stomach's contents empty.

"D-Dan, what are you doing?" Phil began approaching Dan with measured footsteps, attempting to tread as lightly as a mouse.

"I can't keep living like this, Phil. I just, can't."

He tilted his head up to view the pulsing noose while genuine curiosity crossed his forlorn features.

"I wonder what it'll be like, once I'm gone."

"Dan, you're not going anywhere," Phil said gently, now close enough to Dan to see the black eyes and arteries that rose out of his skin like an infectious disease.

"You don't know what it's like, Phil. To have all of these voices in your head, to have all of these unwanted emotions raging inside of you. You don't know."

"I don't have to know to care about you! Dan, there are other solutions, there are other options, there are other ways of dealing with this that don't end with you dying!"

"You don't understand! There are no other options! If I don't do this..."

Dan failed to finish his thought. He lifted his hands up to the noose and held the shifting darkness in his hands as if it were a sacred artefact, the shadows beginning to creep up his fingers the longer he held it. He could feel the pent up sadness of the shadows, the silent anger of the darkness and the violent hate within the black. Every emotion had made an appearance to Phil, despite Dan's persistent willpower to keep these emotions contained within his soul.

But he was only human.

"If I don't do this, they'll kill you."

Phil was about to ask who "they" were when Dan abruptly rose off the floor and hovered in mid air, the shadows gently lifting his limbs and keeping him in this inhuman position. Dan's face was a carefully constructed mask that refused to let any emotion show, but his eyes portrayed the real horror of the scene as brown irises released muddy, black tears onto his porcelain face. His lips didn't even twitch with feeling as he spoke once more to Phil.

"I don't need them to control me to do this part."

The noose ensnared his neck so ferociously that the shadows physically leapt off of Dan's limbs and connected to the ceiling in order to strengthen the bond between the two areas. It was frightening how quickly Dan's nonchalant expression shifted into one of pain.

Phil acted immediately, remembering that he'd left the knife Dan had cut himself with earlier that week in this very room, and that the shadows strangling his best friend did seem to have the weakness of being harmed, or at least moved, by physical objects. In a frantic rush, Phil ran over to Dan's bedside drawer, hastily pulling out every draw in the piece of furniture until he finally, finally, found the bloody knife in the bottom draw, away from Dan's inquisitive eyes.

He frantically sprinted back to Dan's side, trying his best to ignore his flatmate's gaping breathes that were failing to travel to his lungs. Survival instincts were kicking in, and Dan began madly thrashing his legs in an attempt to free himself from the pressing force against his neck. While gravity was also contributing to Dan's suffering, the twisting shadows were Phil's focus as he zeroed in on his target.

It was difficult to measure how far underneath the writhing darkness Dan's neck was, but Phil felt sure of himself as he slid the knife harshly across the black mess in an attempt to thin out the amount of pressure there. It appeared to work, as the shadow's grip on Dan's neck had lessened ever so slightly, and that was all the confirmation Phil needed to continue slashing the coiling darkness and everything it represented. He cut deeper, applied more pressure onto the blade when the shadows got thicker, and cut mercilessly in order to help Dan live though this nightmare of a reality. The severe cold the darkness brought with it was the least of Phil's priorities at the time. 

The darkness was thinner, only just managing to keep its grip on Dan's neck as Phil had managed to damage a decent area of the noose. Gasping that resembled a breath was then heard from Dan, and Phil hoped desperately that his makeshift plan had somehow succeeded in saving Dan's life from the supernatural being that was trying to kill him. The shadows abruptly released their hold of Dan's neck, but rather than Dan taking a proper breath, a strained gargle came from him as he collapsed onto the bedroom floor, his hands darting for his neck with the instinct to survive.

Phil simply stood there, too shocked to confront the consequences of his actions. He knew he should have tried a different method. He knew he should have cut shallower. He knew he should have cut lighter.

Because now there was blood at Dan's throat.

Brown eyes begged for forgiveness as Dan saw Phil from a different perspective, one that had distorted the view of his best friend, permanently. He had done this. Phil had cut his neck open, and had carelessly tried to save Dan in the midst of his panic. Now, Dan was paying the price by having to go though with a slow, tortuous end.

"E-End it, P-Phil," Dan stuttered, blood beginning to seep rapidly out of the wound now that he'd spoken.

Black shadows appeared to leak out of Dan's skin as his raspy breaths became shallower and shallower. It was as if a pool of death was surrounding him, confirming to Phil what he already knew but didn't want to believe.

Dan was going to die, whether it be physically by his hands or not.

He found that his whole body had begun trembling at the realisation that these would be Dan's last moments. No ambulance or hospital could help Dan now; his windpipe was beyond repair. But Phil could help Dan.

Help Dan by putting him out of his misery.

He could give Dan a quicker, less painful death. He could end his suffering almost immediately, and put Dan into a better place. He could save Dan from the seemingly endless pain he'd have to endure until death finally took him in its gracious arms.

Except he couldn't.

Phil avoided Dan's pleading eyes, and when Dan realised Phil wasn't able to see through with his request, he let out the quietest sigh he could manage in order to lessen the already burning pain.

"I-It's ok... I w-wouldn't... have done it... e-either."

Every word pierced Phil's core and drove his righteous mind to madness. He couldn't understand how Dan was so calm about this; why the hell wasn't he screaming from the pain? What was he thinking so clearly about to distract himself from his suffering?

"P-Phil, they'll... w-want you to be c-cold... Don't l-listen to t-them... O-Or me.... Please."

Two minutes passed in silence, with Phil only ever glancing at the shadows that had secured the perimeter around Dan's body. There were now small puddles of red mixed with the other various substances.

Dan's last words chilled Phil to the bone, and he found himself unable to look his best friend in the eye one last time before he passed.

"I o-only... k-killed myself... t-to save you... f-from them."

A singular release of raspy air escaped Dan's lungs before the shadows attacked Phil, a wail of loss erupting from deep with him as the darkness forced its way through his skin. A sudden coldness grew from within him, and if Phil had assumed that his feelings were the strongest they'd ever been only moments ago, that assumption was quickly eradicated when a tsunami of a thousand negative emotions consumed him and his usually joyous soul in milliseconds.

It was as if a dagger was being shoved into his heart over and over again, with each thrust having more meaning and emphasis than the last.

Then, there was a voice in his head. Or rather, many voices. They spoke over the top of one another, and it was difficult to focus on solely one when no voice was distinct enough to be recognised easily. They were all telling him different things, but the one underlying theme they all spoke of was ending other's suffering.

These voices were victims of suicide.

These victim's souls, cold and heartless, were embodied in a living, breathing darkness that sought out to end other's suffering, no matter the method or cost. And Dan was now among the voices; whispering things alongside the others that Phil knew he'd never usually say. It was all so, so wrong.

All hope drained from Phil's attitude as he understood what this supernatural being truly was, and his outlook on life plumetted when he finally realised that Dan was never going to properly come back. Ever.

Phil thought he was going to scream.

These voices and raging emotions were already driving him to the edge of insanity; did Dan feel this every day he lived with the shadows inside of his body? How did he manage to keep his nearly flawless façade on for all of that time? Phil had barely been affected by the cold for a couple of minutes now, but the entire situation was already becoming unbearable.

There was a solution, Phil realised. He held the blade he'd killed Dan with, because while that was far from his intention, it had still happened on his account. He was the one to blame, and he accepted that wholeheartedly. Maybe that was why he was particularly keen on driving that knife into his heart.

The voices were urging him to do it, to end his own pain and suffering, despite only having to deal with such things for a couple of minutes. But those few minutes had been enough to realise that he could never again live with Dan Howell, that he couldn't live without his best friend, and that he couldn't live with himself for killing him.

That final thought was what persuaded him to plunge the knife into his chest, and was what persuaded him to wait for his inevitable death as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The cold had consumed his soul, just as Dan had warned him against. It was too late to change his decision, though. Far too late, he thought, as he saw the bright red stain beginning to seep through his top.

As the pain began to intensify, insignificant thoughts crowded Phil's mind as he came to terms with what he was doing to himself. Was this how Dan was thinking when he was dying? Did he really kill himself to escape from his own issues, or did he do it as a selfless act in order to try to protect Phil from being persuaded by this unnatural force to commit suicide? Whatever the reason at the time was, Phil understood now.

Everybody wears a mask. Some masks were made of clay, others of paper. Phil liked to think that Dan's mask might have been made of watercolours, as most of the time he made sure to keep his emotions contained, but on the rare occasion that water met the paint, the truth would come dripping out in colours not everybody would have expected to see.

Phil thought of Dan's mask once more, and came to the conclusion that his suicide plans were always being constructed behind that mask, and that Phil had never been able to crack it the entire time he'd known Dan in order to see the colours of paint underneath. Maybe Phil will never really see those colours for himself on anybody.

A mask is one side of a person, and colour is the other. Sometimes, one side is easier to see than the other, and other times only one side can even be seen in the first place. Phil realises on his death bed that even he has a side to himself he never knew about; a side that was willing to kill himself if he couldn't share his life with someone else.

It's difficult to make an honest judgement of character without having the full picture.

It all depends on who you really see.


End file.
